


Glad With Our Carols

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Advent Calendar, Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Books, Breakfast, Cambridge, Christmas Fluff, Church of England, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Music, POV John Watson, Post-World War I, Religious Content, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Watson's Woes WAdvent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 17:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12893340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: For the Watson's Woes Advent prompt, "Lessons and Carols." Holmes loves music, Watson loves Holmes, and the author indulges her feelings about liturgical history and medieval music. As with other things I write for Holmes and Watson, this can be read as gen or slash.





	Glad With Our Carols

“I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning.

“Go?” I echoed. I confess that I was still half-drowsing, though the aroma from our silver-plated coffeepot invited to full wakefulness. “Where?”

My old friend smiled indulgently at me over the spectacles he used for close reading. I need not here elaborate on the eloquence of the appeals to friendship and claims to medical expertise which had been necessary to win him to this practice.

“To Camford, dear boy.” 

The prospect of leaving the close embrace of the Sussex downs for the fen country in the dead of winter struck me as a particularly unattractive one.

“Holmes…” I began.

He waved the letter he held. “It is an invitation,” said he, “from an old acquaintance.”

“Not a case, then?”

“Watson!” Holmes placed one long-fingered hand at his breast in a dramatic pantomime of offended dignity. “Could you imagine that I would be so easily seduced from the tranquil pleasures of domesticity? So accessible upon the side of vanity? So ready to abandon the delights of the hearth for the dangers of the chase?” 

“Very easily,” said I severely.

“Well!” He twinkled at me, as he threw the letter down on the table and poured the coffee. “Perhaps you are right. But no — no, the letter is from a man I knew in my university days.” I raised my eyebrows. “It is true,” continued Holmes, “that we knew each other only as men of solitary nature who share a common interest. But this common interest has fueled a cordial if irregular correspondence between us, and it is in this connection that he writes to me now.”

His delight for holding me in suspense had lessened no whit over the years. I poured myself a second cup of coffee before replying. “Well, Holmes?”

“Medieval music,” said he. “But while its elegant austerity and vigorous playfulness are but _divertissements_ to me, Reynolds has become an acknowledged expert in the field. He writes to say that he has had the pleasure of consulting on a new form of service incorporating such music for common observance, alongside the latest achievements of our modern composers. You will agree, Watson, that it is something rather novel. There is even a macaronic carol among the selections.” 

My friend’s grey eyes were alight with a brilliance I had once feared might be inspired only by the thrill of finding himself in pursuit of an enigma impenetrable by lesser intellects… or by stimulants less natural and more dangerous. I sighed. “When do we leave?”

Holmes rubbed his hands together, and I smiled to see his manifest pleasure. “Shall we say the 20th? Reynolds lives alone, save for his housekeeper, and pronounces himself perfectly ready to accommodate two old bachelors for a few days. Besides,” he added, reaching across me for the honey, “it is pleasant to renew old connections at this season of the year, is it not, Watson?”

For some moments I only gaped at him. “It is,” said I, when I could make rejoinder, “but I never thought to live to hear you say so, Sherlock Holmes.”

He looked up at me over his toast. “That is exceedingly gratifying,” said he; “I should be sorry indeed to think that I had entirely lost my ability to astonish you.” 

***

And so it was that we found ourselves on the platform of our little station, the object of the porter’s solicitude. She was manifestly convinced that only some dire emergency, or else some great gathering of relations, could induce two gentlemen such as ourselves to place our age and infirmities at the mercy of the weather and of the trains. I half-feared that Holmes might invent a great-aunt with a centennial birthday, but his airy “We are going to a concert, ma’am,” effectively silenced her, a consequence which he appeared not to have anticipated.

We broke our journey in London, indulging ourselves in a leisurely luncheon, and were with Reynolds by the evening. I admit to some trepidation concerning the meeting; Holmes had spoken of him, after all, as a man with a nature similar to his own, and the groves of academe are infamous for allowing the eccentricities of their denizens to flourish unchecked. He turned out to be a charming personage, as slight as Holmes was tall, with a rosy face like a pippin, and a bright, birdlike gaze. I suspected that his intelligence might prove a merciless one, and wondered how many students had misjudged him over the years. He had a habit — disquieting to me — of patting himself all over to find small and necessary objects, as though unsure of where he had put his pockets. His platform ticket, his handkerchief, and his keys all made their appearance in due course, however, and by the time we were settled by his fire and enjoying his sherry, I had quite warmed to the queer little man.

Most of the students having returned to their homes for the Christmas holidays, Holmes and I could move about the city without fear of being run over by cyclists speeding over the cobblestones with the insouciance of youth. So, despite the cold, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Holmes found his way unerringly to a bookshop almost hidden in the curve of a small lane next to an ancient church. While I browsed among the novels of Stevenson and Meredith, Holmes burrowed happily in untidy piles of books, or asked unhesitatingly to be shown volumes sheltered by glass cases.

That evening, I remonstrated with Holmes that we hardly had the space in our luggage to accommodate his newfound treasures — a three-volume Hoffmann, and a Petrarch that was apparently quite rare. Unfortunately, I was improvident enough to do so in the presence of Reynolds, who promptly volunteered the loan of a carpetbag, which he could perfectly well do without until the long vacation, etc. So it was that we found ourselves promising to receive a spring visit, to say nothing of as many books as Holmes could fit into a carpetbag (his talents in this direction have long been a source of wonder to me.) I could not bring myself to resent these developments; perhaps this was due to the mellowing influence of Reynolds’ undoubtedly excellent brandy.

In the ensuing days, we made the acquaintance of several of Reynolds’ colleagues, as well. A charming young historian named Kirke entertained us with his theories of how episodes hitherto dismissed as the fantastical inventions of medieval chroniclers might in fact hold echoes of texts and histories since lost to us. The churchman who was the chief architect of Reynolds’ new service turned out to be a man who shared my experience of the World War in France, and who had taken from those horrors inspiration for the role of the church in our ravaged century. It was heartening to find this profound and vigorous intelligence applied to such a task, if somewhat sobering to be reminded that here was a man half my age already well-launched upon his life’s work. In the care of soul and body, though, we found shared interests… which was just as well, as the rest of the dinner table was deep in debate on the influence of the vernacular upon the development and use of Latin in fourteenth-century England.

At last came Christmas Eve itself, with the service that was the pretext for our visit. Our breath smoked upon the air, and the wind stung our faces, but Holmes’ face glowed with the delight of anticipation. Though my old wounds ached in the cold, I could not find it in my heart to begrudge this outing far from home and hearth. In the winter dark, the vast chapel seemed to glow mysteriously, the stone casting back the light of our candles, with an occasional flash of scarlet or sapphire from the saints in the windows above us. The chapel soon filled — “University _and_ Town” whispered Reynolds with audible satisfaction — and I felt my bones thaw a little in the human warmth. I confess, too, that I sat as close to Holmes as was seemly; though he has remained as wiry as when I first knew him, he is also mysteriously and gratifyingly warm-blooded.

“Mind you sing heartily, Watson,” whispered my friend, and then we stood, his clear tenor ringing out beside me in the opening hymn. The finer points of the liturgy were, I am afraid, lost on me. Holmes and Reynolds doubtless experienced the pleasure of the connoisseur. For my part, I was more than content merely to sit in that ancient place, surrounded by my fellows, and give thanks — that the choirboys who sang so sweetly might grow up in a world without war; that the young woman in front of us gripped her husband’s one arm so tightly; that we had all come through darkness and cold, through hardship and suffering, and still dared to hope.

“…And upon his kingdom,” said the undergraduate reader, “to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

My sight grew dim, I confess, and the flames of the candles swam before me. As the choir began the next carol, Holmes slipped his arm through mine, and I returned its gentle pressure. 

_Then suddenly grew the snow to rose,_  
_The bare oaks grew to green,_  
_The bitter wind was a gentle air,_  
_A gentle air,_  
_A gentle air;_  
_The bitter wind was a gentle air,_  
_And I felt not fear or teen.  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I follow Dorothy L. Sayers in identifying Holmes' alma mater of Camford with Cambridge. The bookseller's is G. David, where I have spent happy hours browsing untidy piles of books. Digory Kirke is, of course, gleefully borrowed from C.S. Lewis, as the opening line is taken from "Silver Blaze." The service of Lessons and Carols, now so famous that it seems to have existed from time immemorial, was in fact devised -- based on medieval models -- in the late nineteenth century, and brought to King's College Chapel in the aftermath of WWI by Eric Milner-White, with whom Dr. Watson is pictured as conversing. The order of service for the first 1918 celebration can be found here: http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/archive-centre/college-archives/tour/religion/nine-lessons2.html. The carol quoted at the end is this one: https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/as_up_the_wood_i_took_my_way.htm


End file.
